“As somebody who was 14 from a working-class town so far away from London, I was told my only option was to move to London at 18 and go to drama school. That was the only way I was going to be successful. And I didn’t do any of those things,” says House of the Dragon star Bethany Antonia.
“I wrote to hundreds of agents until I got one — and I got one. And slowly built a career that is now on par with my peers that have been to drama school.”
On House of the Dragon, now in its second fiery season, the 26-year-old Birmingham, England native plays the dragonrider Lady Baela Targaryen, daughter of Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) and Laena Velaryon (Nanna Blondell). To prepare for her role on the HBO prequel series, set more than a century before Game of Thrones, she read George R. R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, which details the history of House Targaryen.
“What I really took from Game of Thrones was the formalities of the high-born noble people compared to the people who weren’t well off,” she says. “Getting a chance to play a Targaryen meant that I was getting the chance to play somebody of noble birth.
– Credit: C/O
“I was really interested in how they would speak to each other and how they would stand and hold themselves, and how differently they would talk in front of big groups of people versus when they have an intimate conversation. That’s something I got to do a lot more of this season.”
The set of House of the Dragon is “unlike anything I’ve ever seen before in my life,” she says.
“The art department blows my mind, because the whole thing is just built, so you have the freedom to go anywhere you want, and you’re not restricted by any kind of pre-set movement,” she says. “If they’re building a library, they’re building a library, and they’re going to build the entire thing — and there’s going to be books on every wall that have got things in them that are actual Targaryen print.”
How Bethany Antonia Prepares to Play Lady Baela on House of the Dragon
To get into the headspace of Lady Baela, she listens to a special Spotify playlist full of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Little Mix. She also practices High Valyrian, the language spoken by the Targaryens.
“We have an amazing guy who just basically voice-notes you every day speaking High Valyrian, and so you learn it. I only got to do a tiny bit this season, but I still really find it fascinating,” she says.
She has known what she wants to do with her life since she was 14.
“My mom was the biggest and best champion, and still is for everything I’ve ever done. But I laugh because it was really funny — nobody in my family has ever acted before,” she says. “I kind of just came home one day and was like, ‘I want to be an actor.’ And she was like, ‘Okay, how do we do that then?’”
She laughs: “I remember sitting down and Googling, ‘How to be an actor.’”
Her mother signed her up for acting classes at First Act Workshops, a program founded by Ross Berkeley Simpson in Birmingham, which led to auditions for location productions. Her first acting job was in a short-film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
“‘Oh, my God. I had the best day of my whole life, and I want to do that every day. I don’t want to go back to school,’ was what I thought,” she says. “So from then, I remember it clear as day. I just decided that that was it: I was going to do that forever.”
– Credit: C/O
From there, she got small roles on shows like the BBC soap Doctors and the Channel 4 sitcom Stath Lets Flats before booking her first series regular role on the Netflix teen drama Get Even in 2020. Two years later, she was shooting Season 1 of House of the Dragon. She’s also recently appeared in Hallmark’s Sense & Sensibility movie adaptation and in Nolly, a miniseries on ITV’s streaming arm ITVX,starring Helena Bonham Carter as the famed English actress Noele Gordon. And she had a voice-acting role in Apple TV+’s The Velveteen Rabbit movie, based on the classic children’s book by Margery Williams.
Next, she’s interested in doing plays — and playing characters who feel “so far removed from me.”
“I’ve got no interest in playing a 26-year-old from Birmingham,” she says. “I want to play really cool, quirky characters who have different accents to me and different mannerisms and ways of speaking. I think that’s what I’ve found with Baela — being able to fully transform is where I get the biggest thrill. When I look completely different and I’m in a wig and I’m on a dragon, that’s the thrill for me. So I’m really interested in playing characters that just take me to a completely new dimension.”
House of the Dragon Season 2 is now airing on HBO.
Main image: Bethany Antonia. Photo by Rachell Smith, courtesy of HBO.